it's been a while so we will try and remember where we were up to in terms of our descriptions. Apparantly Jennifer had started to describe our time wwoofing which was involving lots of dice games , hearty meals and grubbing down ticklepenny corner. it carried on like that for a while including a a dash of playing football with Oliver and Anita and friends down the school field, where we substituted in experience for fitness and came off just about level wtih New Zealands youth. on the farm we helped with a strawberry patch by fetching some pine needle mulch from a neighbouringing forest floor which strawberry's love to grow in, I continued ridding the hillside of gorse and jennifer was a dervish at removing fern. it came to sunday and we bid farewell to the family which was a sad but then 30 minutes later we were re-united at the local market, although we had taken Oliver with us as we set out to Golden Bay to drop near Takaka at a friends house. Loaded up with Cheap veggies and having been pulled by the cops (Yes Mum - your son is a CRIM!) we continued on. You're wondering what heinous crime we committed to incur the wrath of the local constabulary. GBH? drunk driving? even speeding? nope. Failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign... honestly, not very glamourous and he couldn't even be bothered to give us a ticket. it's comical really as new zealand has some of the worst drivers in the world, everyone is in a hurry and expects there to be no one else on the road, (often they are right) so that whenever they come across someone they are all Mr Toad like till they can fly past at the nearest hairpin blind corner. (Jen: I almost lost it with one guy who drove for aobut 50K up my arse yesterday, all state highways are single lane, well mostly anyway, then there are overtaking lanes, and he doesn't bother to overtake even though he's up my arse, he's driving a massive 4x4 and I'm in a 1987 mitsubishi mirage with limited acceleration up hills grrrr)

anyway. we journeyed on , dropped oliver at his mates and made it up to golden bay, we had lunch at a very nice and gloriously sunny picnic ground and then ventured on to the farewell Spit which is a very large finger pointing inot the channel between north and south island. the scenery was stunning and the drive there and back was lovely. we headed back late after noon to Abel tasman and a lovely hostel called the nook, lucky enough to have the whole place to ourselves wtih a roaring fire good books and a lovely tea. the tea was augmented by a quick walk to the local Salami vendor who produces specialst organicy salami for Evan and JEnnifers to eat in stew and the like. We ate well and slept well too (Jen: actually I slept really badly as keep having anxiety dreams aobut taking grade 8 piano again and not having practiced any scales, can any of you pychologists out there tell me why this is?) as the next day we were up early for a long walk in the Abel tasman national park. We walked for 5 hours and had lunch half way at a point called seperation point where a seal colony was hard at play or sunbathing probably depending on if they were in the twenties or had turned 30 already. a brisk walk back and we saw about 4 other people the whole trip. we managed to drive back before dark and had been invited to stay with the family reiter again that nigth to break up the journey so with Oliver still at his mates place we were straight into dice games with Anita and comiserating with ulrike as she had just returned from the dentist minus a tooth (ouch!)

next morning we were gone for real after dropping Anita at school and heading to the local organic winery to taste a tipple or two before arriving in nelson. the winery was very pleasant and also had some nonorganic schnapps and liquers which could have bankrupted us had we not had great self control. my they were nice but we had the promise of an organic brewery tour the next day and managed to sneak out without waving a credit card around with unneccesary largesse.

we checked back into the tasman bay backpackers whcih was very nice with free breakfast and free chocolate cake and ice cream in the evenings all for between 7 and 8 pounds. yummy. Nelson is a nice town and we were happy to be back there for 2 days.

The second day we did a walk and ended up , surprise, at the brewery tasting there sugar free organic produce which was very nice and supplied us with a tipple to go with our evening meal (the only drink we have had in the last month). washed down with more chocolate cake and with our dorm room to ourselves we again slept pretty well before departing for the afternoon ferry back to the north island and bidding a fond farewell to the south island for this trip.

we had decided not to stay in wellington centre and checked into a hostel on the outskirts that was ok and allowed us to watch a bit of coronation street again. Another epsiode involving sarah loiuse not getting married. then we headed up to wanganui, a fare old drive but worth it as the hostel was lovely, nice and quiet, a few channels of SKY TV, a great river veiw and the promise of a farmers market the next day. so we explored in the afternoon , visited the local art gallery which was not far from where we stayed and picked up a list of WHATS ON for hte weekend, which happily had a full program for teh saturday so we decided to stay on and enjoy the weather. Evan decided he'd quite fancy the Ballroom dancing competition going on, so after a morning trolling round the market buying veg, we spent the afternoon watching John and Annette from Wellington do the waltz and the Gypsy Tap ( not one you'll see on strictly come dancing mainly as it's very dull) for the 8th time. For some reason, in the most senior class only john and annette had entered, but each time the seniors came out ( ie just them) they had to dance 8 dances, and so we kept seeing the same gypsy tap and the same Merrilyn(!?!?) but they were all marvellous and annette wore a partciularly fetching lime green chiffon number! We also saw lots of kids and some interesting couplings, one lady who looked like Deirdre barlow but on a really rough bad hair day, with no make up and HUGE round glasses, very school librarian til the neck, then from the neck down, glitzy skin tight bright blue floaty dress... very strange. Everyone was having lots of fun, and so did we for 3 hours, after whcih the repetitive Gypsy Tap was getting to us so we left, for a nice meal of roasted veg and the simpsons on TV.

Yesterday was a mammoth drive up to Raglan, via the waitomo caves which we didn't go in as frankly they're expensive and when you've risked life and limb with a local guide in koh lanta, or had a caving experience with 3 eight year olds in Lao, pootling round in a boat with a bunch of tourists doesn't really justify the expense( oh we're SUCH travelling snobs, not really!) So we explored a couple of the free caves, then after a nerve wracking few K on an unsealed road ( why are there not warnings aobut these thigns?) we arrived in Raglan. Weather nice, hostel friendly, complete post party tip this morning, but we didn't care as we were out being swallows and amazons on the innlet in kayaks. Tour of op shops, popped into the health food shop and just watched Big Fish on video eating some of my homemade pumpkin scones... sounds good eh? Well, we'll be home soon and then we can bore you some more aobut it ( but we promise not to! )